Chris Rock’s Atrocious Bashing of Independence Day

Last Wednesday, patriotic Americans all over the country celebrated our 236th birthday, however, some on the left couldn’t help themselves, but to expose their ignorance about our nation’s founding. Chris Rock is at the epicenter of this debacle. He crudely tweeted “Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m sure they enjoyed fireworks.” Well, Mr. Rock, slavery is known as America’s original sin, but to criticize every caucasian in the country who had no part in enslaving Africans during the slave trade, is beyond absurd. Hence, why slave reparations legislation is asinine. I still don’t know why Chris Rock or other members of the Hollywood Left continue to bash the very foundation that has allowed them to prosper in this country. I don’t know why they keep on dwelling the imperfections of the men who founded our nation. Our Declaration of Independence based our nation’s founding on an inherent set of rights in an age where such entities were founded on the words monarchs or ethnic groups. It was revolutionary. Yes, slavery was unresolved, but that was not the issue at hand. However, that is not to say that the political class, throughout our history, has a bad habit of sweeping pressing issues under the rug. Regrettably, it took the collapse of our republic and 600,000 American lives to settle the issue. Yet, it was abolished forever and codified in our constitution.

Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, sometime about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them.

We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty—or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,—with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men,—we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves—we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration [loud and long continued applause], and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of “don’t care if slavery is voted up or voted down” [Douglas’s “popular sovereignty” position on the extension of slavery to the territories], for sustaining the Dred Scott decision [A voice—“Hit him again”], for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices—“me” “no one,” &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of “no, no,”] let us stick to it then [cheers], let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]

This was part of a series of debates between Lincoln and incumbent Democrat Stephen Douglas, who supported popular sovereignty concerning slave issues and the notion that “this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine.” I feel Mr. Rock hasn’t read much, or frankly doesn’t care, about our history. The religious waves that spawned the abolition movement or the brave political leaders who felt the practice immoral and evil. However, labeling conservatives, patriots, or anything celebrating America as racist isn’t a new behavior exuded with the left.

This tactic was used to change the narrative when the health care debate was in full swing. Liberals tried to label the Tea Party acist back in 2009 and 2010. It centered on the now debunked event of the “N’-Word” being hurled at Rep. John Lewis that caught on with the dead tree media, who foams at the mouth over such frivolous accusations, and diluted the message away from the rampant spending and pending government takeover of health care that was occurring in Washington. It details a disturbing turn in American politics with the institutional left. It shows they are willing to engage and channel into the darkest parts of our nature. With the latest jobs report further demonstrating the failure of this president’s policies to revive the economy, the left has no where else to go. They can’t spin the facts so they turn to the one thing that is anathema to society. It’s vicious and wrong. Whoever is accused of racism on our side will be compelled to prove that he isn’t and pivot away from the single issue that will sink this president’s chances of re-election. It’s a winning strategy.

Hence why the left, especially Hollywood liberals, use racism to attack conservatives. The more time we spend defending ourselves or one another, the more we waste in attacking the left leading up to Election Day. While some conservatives continue to have conniptions over progressive jargon spewed over Twitter, keep in mind how the left benefits from you wasting your time combating such petulance. Luckily, we have the facts and Joe Williams, formerly of Politico, to thank in blunting future attacks since his Twitter feed showed a long campaign of race baiting that he described as the “secret sauce in the Politico s**tburger.” Regardless, they left is bound to use this tactic so many times it will lose it’s effect in the news cycle. After all, with an economy suffering from an unemployment rate of over eight percent for the past forty months, of which twenty-six of those months saw unemployment above nine percent, it’s going to be harder to deploy that tactic.